Vaping’s popularity sparks talk of regulation

John Kreis is worried that his business could go up in a puff of smoke.

Kreis, the co-owner of the Old Port Vape shop in Portland, said efforts to regulate vaporizers or electronic cigarettes could cripple the industry, which is now dominated by small nicotine liquid manufacturers and shops like his.

Emily Healy, left, Kristina Samar, center, and Justice Degregorio try different flavors of vape liquid at Old Port Vape in Portland. Maine is potentially looking to tax vape products much like tobacco, although many people use vaping to quit smoking. Photos by Whitney Hayward/Staff Photographer

Old Port Vape co-owner John Kreis says, “I couldn’t count how many people have come into my shop in Portland who said they haven’t gone a day without a cigarette in 20 years and then they come in two weeks later and said, ‘I haven’t had a cigarette since.’ ”

Kreis said vapes, as the devices are known, are an innovative way to either allow people to continue to smoke and get nicotine into their systems, or as a way for smokers to wean themselves off traditional cigarettes. He said vapes allow smokers to do both while eliminating the tar and other harmful chemicals in traditional tobacco cigarettes.

But the devices are controversial, drawing criticism from people worried that they appeal to kids and could induce conventional smoking, and that no agency regulates the vapes’ flavored liquids, leading to speculation that they could contain harmful ingredients. The Food and Drug Administration is weighing whether to regulate vapes while the Federal Trade Commission is likely to examine how the devices are marketed. Until last week, the state of Maine was considering taxing them as tobacco products.

But to Kreis, the devices’ growing popularity is helping people break decades-long smoking habits.

“It’s really turned into quite a big movement,” said Kreis, who opened his store on Market Street in June 2014. “I couldn’t count how many people have come into my shop in Portland who said they haven’t gone a day without a cigarette in 20 years and then they come in two weeks later and said, ‘I haven’t had a cigarette since.’ This is the miracle that smokers have been looking for.”

GROWING SALES, POPULARITY

Vapes are small vaporizers that convert a liquid containing a vegetable-based glycerin, nicotine and a flavoring into vapor, which is inhaled by the smoker. The base of a vaporizer, which is about the size of a large pen, contains the heating unit and a rechargeable battery. Disposable e-cigarettes, which vapes are often compared to, are cheaper, look more like traditional cigarettes and can’t be recharged after the liquid is used up.

The industry is on the rise. Global research firm BIS Research, which tracks the e-cigarettes industry worldwide, projects the industry will grow by 22.36 percent annually, reaching $50 billion by 2025.

“Although the market is being driven on multiple promising factors such as the presence of established brands, cost-effectiveness, perceived health benefits and product customizations, there are certain pain points such as uncertain regulatory framework, increasing incidents of e-liquid poisoning and compatibility issues among others which must be addressed for the market to grow significantly,” said a BIS Research report on the industry.

This past week, regulators in Britain approved a license by a vape maker there that allows the device to be prescribed as a smoking cessation aid. And a documentary being released this year, “A Billion Lives,” presents the point of view that hundreds of millions of lives could be saved if people stopped smoking traditional cigarettes – with vapes seen as a means to that end.

Kreis said sales have doubled his “best case” projections from when he opened his shop, although he declined to provide specific sales numbers.

Lorenzo Rozzi, who owns City Center News at One City Center in Portland, also hopes to ride that wave of popularity. Rozzi said he sold out his initial supply of about 20 vapes and liquids in about two weeks last month and has been trying to contact a salesman to get resupplied since. In addition to the flavors, he said, customers like the fact that they’re inhaling vapors, rather than smoke and the chemicals that are in cigarettes.

The cost is also appealing – one rechargeable base and a liquid vial cost about $15. His customers, Rozzi said, tell him that a $5 vial of liquid flavoring provides the equivalent of smoking two packs of cigarettes, which run about $7.50 each.

Kreis concurs that the flavoring is a big draw, to the point that some of his customers use vape liquids that don’t contain nicotine for the flavor alone.

“We have coffee, tobacco, custards and creams, fruits. We can get you strawberry rhubarb pie with a graham crust finished with cream,” Kreis said.

OVERSIGHT ON THE HORIZON?

But it’s that tempting menu of flavorings that adds to critics’ charges that vapes appeal to children. They contend the flavors are intended to attract children to e-cigarettes. In April, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released data that showed vape usage among middle and high school students tripled between 2013 and 2014, increasing from 4.5 percent in 2013 to 13.4 percent in 2014.

Because of that, the Federal Trade Commission plans to study the industry’s marketing practices.

The other federal agency interested in vapes is the FDA, which has held hearings on whether to regulate the devices. Kreis said the market is currently wide open and unregulated – some users even concoct their own liquids for vaporizing. But if the liquids had to be put through a rigorous FDA testing and review process, most of the small manufacturers couldn’t bear the cost and would go out of business.

That in turn could open the door to large, well-financed tobacco companies entering the liquids and vape business. The concern from Kreis and other vendors is that the little guy could be squeezed out because the tobacco companies would be able to control distribution of the liquids.

Big Tobacco is already eyeing the industry. According to BIS Research, in 2014 Imperial Tobacco revealed its agreement with Reynolds American to acquire Blu Ecigs to enter the U.S. market, and tobacco monolith Japan Tobacco announced in April 2015 its intention to take over Logic Technology Development, one of the leading e-cigarettes market players based in the United States.

Also looming is the potential for taxes on the devices and the liquids. Currently, vaporizers, liquids and e-cigarettes are subject only to the state’s 5.5 percent sales tax, but some critics of the devices said they should be subject to higher taxes, like those on cigarettes.

Tobacco product taxes are considerable. Of a typical $6 pack of conventional cigarettes, about $2 is the state tax on tobacco products.

Rep. Jeff McCabe, D-Skowhegan, was backing a measure that would subject vape liquids to equivalent taxes. But he said Thursday he was withdrawing his measure, which would have been the subject of a public hearing before the Legislature’s Taxation Committee on Jan. 13. His proposal didn’t spell out exactly how a tax on vapes would be calculated.

McCabe said he thinks the jury is still out on whether vapes are helpful or hazardous, and higher taxes should wait until the federal government makes that determination. If the FDA decides to regulate the industry, he said, Maine and other states could step in with taxes.

“It doesn’t make sense to move forward at this time,” he said.

Samantha Edwards, a spokeswoman for the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, said the agency hadn’t taken a position on the tax plan before it was withdrawn and is waiting to see more research before deciding if vapes are potentially harmful, an aid to people trying to stop smoking cigarettes, or neither.

She said the state is concerned that children might be attracted to vapes because of the flavoring and it is using some of the money in the Fund for a Healthy Maine – where the state directed its share of a nationwide tobacco lawsuit settlement – into a countermarketing effort. A law banning vapes from areas where cigarettes are also banned went into effect in October, she noted.

Kreis said he believes that more research could show the vapes are much less dangerous than cigarettes and could be a way for people to stop smoking traditional cigarettes. But he wishes the activities weren’t so similar.

“You get your sense of smell back and you can climb stairs again,” he said of dropping cigarettes for vapes, but “I wish it didn’t look like smoking.”

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GriffinClubMerv

I kept reading, waiting for the part explaining how easy it is to convert these vaporizers to use marijuana, which explains the most significant part of the popularity of the product, especially among young people.

PConPi

It certainly sounds like you need an explanation. Firstly, marijuana (or other dried plant material) vaporizers exist. Someone who wanted to vaporize their herb, they’d buy a product designed for vaporizing herbs. If someone who uses a liquid-based nicotine vaporizer (the focus of this article) wanted to use marijuana in it, they would have to process the pot into liquid. You’re simply wrong about why these devices and this nicotine delivery system is popular.
Did you forget that nicotine is more addictive than heroin, and marijuana is NOT in the least? Why so hung up on weed?

GriffinClubMerv

Incorrect. It sounds like you need an explanation of the popular term “modding vapes”.

PConPi

Our sounds like you need an explanation on reading comprehension and civil discourse.
YOU ADDRESSED EXACTLY ZERO OF MY POINTS, WHICH WERE A REPLY TO YOUR ORIGINAL COMMENT. Vaping isn’t popular because vaporizers can be modified to vape pot. The fact that vaporizers designed for solid and liquid substances exist speaks to that.
And “modding vapes” is an expression, not a term.

marcedward

Dude, you don’t know what modding means.

marcedward

What’s your point? There are already “herbal vaporizers” on the market. There’s already THC oil and THC candies on the market. Nobody needs to use an e-cigarette if they want to enjoy THC when out in public.

Tom Blackwell

The “volcano vaporizer” has been around since the 90’s and is used to vape herb.
A Mod is a device in which you can control the power to your nicotine vaporizer
An herbal vaporizer uses an entirely different atomizer and it still smells like weed because they all still combust the herb some.

charlie

I wish ecigs had been around when I was a kid. Vaping got me off cigarettes 15 months ago and did the same for my brother some months later. Besides feeling better we eliminate the cost of smoking which was $3,000 a year for each of us. My brother’s cost to vape last year for everything was less than $200. I mix my own e liquid at home to avoid ingrediants I don’t want. It costs me 8 cents a day. The money my brother saves will help put his teenage daughter trhough college. The money I save will help with retirement.

delverman

As a former heavy smoker (over 50 years at 2 1/2 to 3 packs a day), it’s been almost 2 years since switching over to vaping. It’s amazing to me that the urge for cigarettes was gone in less than 10 days- and that’s coming from one who truly enjoyed cigarettes all those years.
For the last 8 years of smoking I had turned to rolling my own cigarettes in order to reduce cost to under $20/week- with vaping I use a low nicotine liquid with mild flavor and the cost is under $5/week. I can honestly say that cigarette smoking fortunately had little adverse health effects on me(that I am aware of) by age 70 other than coughing up brown phlegm once in a while. Since switching to vaping, I don’t even have that anymore. I see that they are coming out with vitamin liquid and may give it a try as I also take supplements.

Erik Vanderlieb

Where I live it’s legal to “vape” in restaurants.
Now the places are filed with people doing it. Many use flavored liquids and it is an annoyance to those who are not addicts, almost as annoying as cigarettes. Maybe it’s not as harmful as smoking, but it’s still harmful. To me it’s just a dodge to get around smoking prohibitions and I personally know a number of people who only do it indoors and revert to cigarettes elsewhere.
Good for Maine’s decision to include this dodge in its smoking ban

marcedward

Have you ever thought to man up and ask somebody “Hey could you not vape while I’m eating?”
Do you really need the government to ban all people from vaping just so you won’t have to approach another human being? I would forgo vaping during a meal if it was bothering somebody.

Erik Vanderlieb

Well, now, back when it was legal to smoke in restaurants and bars I used to ask people to refrain and sometimes they would, but most of the time they’d give me the churlish “It’s a free country” line. In a culture which celebrates unfettered individualism and excuses all manner of uncivil conduct it can be a challenge. I lack the physical attributes which would make people fear me and that puts me at a disadvantage, so, no, I don’t “man up”.

delverman

I vape whenever I get the urge- not that often like with cigarettes. There is no smoke and does not linger like cigarette smoke. I used to love cigarettes and just don’t crave them at all since switching. A famous doctor(MD) once wrote a book about the health benefits of moderate smoking-emphasis “moderate”. He claimed statistically moderate smokers lived an average of 2 years longer than non-smokers. I believe he was right- as an example a woman Jeanne Calment(moderate smoker) from France lived 6 years longer than any non-smoker in history. There are numerous examples and while we Americans have reduced smoking to a small percent we are 32’nd in longevity behind some 3rd world countries.

mooncusser99

I truly do not think if people smoke they will increase their longevity. Where there are exceptions and people may smoke their entire lives and not get cancer, studies have shown the average person will pay a price. My guess is genetics play a role. Many people who do not smoke nor are exposed to smoke contract lung cancer. However, I choose to play the odds and quit smoking nearly 20 years ago. Never looked back.